


Waking Up, With Tea

by DameRuth



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-10
Updated: 2011-07-10
Packaged: 2017-10-21 05:34:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes each of the TARDIS crew needs a little tea and TLC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waking Up, With Tea

**Author's Note:**

> Set between the end of S5 and the start of S6. Kind of an odd style this time out, but it's how the Muse wanted it and who am I to argue? We'll just ignore that small canon bit about bunk beds, shall we?

I.

Some nights Amy dreams, and when she wakes up she can't remember what's real.

Her mum and dad, her husband, her Doctor, the _stars_ , everything she's ever truly loved -- she's lived lives where none of them exist (or will exist, or have existed), and lives where some or all of them do. Each and every one of those lives has been absolutely _real_. And because Amy is special -- because she's the girl who waited, the one who spent her childhood with all of Time And Space whispering through her dreams -- she remembers everything.

Those are the nights she wakes up crying and can't stop, even in the safety of her magical TARDIS bedroom where the walls thrum with a reassuring heartbeat, even with Rory's arms tight around her in their shared bed, even as her husband whispers reassuringly into her hair that everything's all right. In fact, that makes it worse, because sometimes it _hasn't_ been all right. Sometimes she's lost him and sometimes she hasn't even had him in the first place, and she's terrified that those lives are reality and this is the dream.

Before too long there's a tap at the door, and then the Doctor pushes it open with his shoulder because both his hands are busy holding a tea-tray. His face is young and cautious and old and worried all at once. He meets Rory's eyes, asking permission. Rory, cradling Amy as she presses her face into his shoulder and sobs, gives a little nod.

It might be strange, having an alien set a tea-tray on the bedside table and then perch familiarly on the edge of their bed, but the Doctor's so much a part of Amy's and Rory's lives, like a single bright thread woven back and forth through a tapestry, he belongs anywhere they are. It isn't out of place for him to add his soft, careful voice to Rory's reassurances until Amy first starts to listen, and then starts to believe: this is real, the happy ending came true after all.

That's when she relaxes and lets go of Rory. As she wipes in embarrassment at her running nose and red, puffy eyes, the Doctor pours them all a nice cuppa (decaffeinated, he assures them), hot and soothing. There are also usually biscuits and sometimes Jaffa cakes, and always a single, porcelain vase just large enough to hold a sprig of fresh lavender.

When Amy is relaxed enough to start yawning (and Rory's usually yawning right along with her at that point), the Doctor gathers cups and saucers, brushes crumbs from the comforter, tucks the lavender under Amy's pillow -- "To help you sleep. Lavender is very restful, or so I'm told. I wouldn't know, it doesn't work on Time Lords" -- and gives her a kiss on the forehead like a fond old uncle saying goodnight to his favorite niece.

More often than not, he gives Rory the same forehead-kiss, which is a bit weird, but Rory realizes it means he isn't to feel left out, and the sentiment's as reassuring as the kiss is disconcerting.

Carrying the tray carefully so nothing on it rattles, the Doctor tiptoes from their room, and closes the door gently behind him.

 

II.

Some nights Rory dreams, and when he wakes up he can't remember who he is.

Two childhoods, English and Roman, warring for supremacy in his head; two languages, one a distant ancestor of the other, both of them on the tip of his tongue; two thousand years when he wasn't even _human_ , when he was a Thing that had killed the woman it loved . . .

Amy tries to hold and comfort him, but he flinches away from her to the farthest edge of the bed, wrapping his arms around his body and pinning his hands (one of which might be a gun) in his armpits while he warns her to _stay back_ , without even being sure what language he's speaking. In response, Amy backs away, holding her hands up reassuringly, talking to him, trying to soothe him with words only half of him understands. Meaning aside, the confident tone of her voice helps a bit, but on its own it's not enough to convince him of who he is; it hasn't always been enough; it might not be enough again . . .

That's when the Doctor appears, opening the bedroom door without hesitation and crossing quickly to the bed. He has a stethoscope draped around his neck, and he's balancing a steaming cup of tea on a saucer. Amy, sighing in relief, makes room for the Doctor to crawl up on the bed next to her. Rory huddles even more tightly into himself and repeats his warnings, but when the Doctor lifts the stethoscope from around his neck and holds it out to him, Rory can't help himself: he grabs for it and the hope it offers.

With the cold, familiar metal pad pressed to his own chest and the sound of an undeniable human heartbeat (racing, practically galloping, far too fast) filling his ears, Rory closes his eyes and inhales, feeling his lungs fill with air and _hearing_ it at the same time. Somehow, hearing makes it real, and Rory keeps breathing carefully, in and out, while the throb of his heart slows and steadies. Finally, he pulls the earpieces free and opens his eyes. Amy is watching him with ferocious intensity and when Rory manages a ghost of a smile, she all but tackles him. Rory lets out a surprised (but not _very_ surprised, he knows Amy) _whoof!_ of air before hugging her back: real, warm, pliant human flesh meeting more of the same.

Over Amy's shoulder, he can see the Doctor smiling at them: old and sad and wise and maybe just a _bit_ smug. When Amy's finally hugged Rory as much as she's going to and sits back, the Doctor passes the cup and saucer to Rory. It's still, improbably, hot: the TARDIS's doing, most likely, but Rory isn't going to question even small miracles at the moment. Instead, he blows to cool the tea, savoring the delicate scent, then the crisp flavor on his tongue, the reflexive contraction of his throat muscles, and the warmth in his stomach. When he's drained the last, he returns the cup to the Doctor. Then he fishes the stethoscope from where it's gotten tangled in the bedsheets and hands that over as well. The Doctor slings the stethoscope back around his neck, gives Rory's shoulder a squeeze with his free hand, ruffles Amy's hair (she squeaks in surprise and indignation, but is too startled to retaliate), and whisks out of the room as briskly as he arrived.

 

III.

Some nights -- when he sleeps at all -- the Doctor dreams, and when he wakes up he remembers too much.

Amy and Rory know when it happens because they both wake up, too, abruptly and simultaneously, and something in the TARDIS's hum is different. They roll out of bed and wrap up in dressing gowns and go looking for the Doctor, all without needing to say a word to one another.

They usually find him in the library, on the green velvet sofa or in one of the overstuffed chairs, and he sits silently, watching them approach without reacting, his expression bleak and his eyes unspeakably tired. Rory's lived twice as long as the Time Lord, after a fashion, but the way the Doctor looks makes Rory feel young: just a kid, a baby, barely a zygote, even. Amy drops down next to the Doctor (if he's on the sofa) or in front of him (if he's in a chair), curling her legs underneath her, as comfortable on the floor as she is on the sofa. Amy is like a cat that way: wherever she sits belongs to her immediately. She rests her slim, pale hand on top of the Doctor's and begins talking to him: a swift, rambling monologue about where they've just been and where they'll go tomorrow, the places they've seen and will see and the ones she thinks they _should_ see sometime, for a laugh or a lark or just to say they've been.

The Doctor's bleak, blank expression remains, but he turns his head so he can look at Amy, tracking her words. That's good, and that's Rory's cue.

He leaves them to it and goes to find the galley. It's usually close by, on nights like this. Once he's there, Rory makes tea.

Nothing in the galley is ever in the same place twice, not even the cabinets and furniture, but Rory doesn't have any trouble finding things, not now; whatever he needs tends to be in the first place he looks. Some items turn up at his elbow, not-there one second, there the next. Other times he simply reaches out vaguely and manages to lay his hand on exactly the thing he wanted. Under different circumstances it would be unnerving, if not downright freaky, to have inanimate objects as good as popping out of thin air at him, but Rory keeps his mind focused on the fact that the TARDIS is friendly, and she's as worried about the Doctor as he is. It's like being in a fairytale castle, the one in _Beauty and the Beast_ , where one only need wish for something to have it appear -- though mercifully without the disembodied hands. Rory isn't sure he'd be able to take disembodied hands, friendly or not.

It's also reassuring that there are only ordinary tea-things to be encountered. Rory can't conjure up fresh lavender the way the Doctor does for Amy, but when given the right tools he can assemble a perfectly respectable tea-tray. He even manages to find the Jaffa cakes (or, rather, they find him).

When he returns to the library, Amy is _still_ talking (that's talent, that is), but now the Doctor is really and truly listening to her: his eyes are warm and focused, and he's smiling just a little bit. It's like witnessing the first hint of life seeping back into someone who's been turned from flesh to stone and back into flesh again. Rory breathes a sigh of relief. He places the tray on the floor in front of the Doctor and settles crosslegged next to it. In his pajamas and dressing gown, there's something childish about it all, like playing at having a tea party, but Rory doesn't let that stop him from efficiently pouring and handing around real, grown-up cups of tea.

The Doctor moves proactively to take his cup, no longer reacting semi-passively to what's around him, and Rory knows then things will be fine, even before the Doctor smiles at him -- a full-on smile, not just the suggestion of one -- and says, "Thank you."

Rory hands him a Jaffa cake, too, and begins adding his own comments to Amy's, turning a monologue into a conversation; before long, the Doctor's taking part as well (and, unsurprisingly, taking _control_ not long after that). There's laughter, tea and talk of tomorrow, lasting into what would be the wee hours if the TARDIS kept anything like normal time. When Amy and Rory are yawning and drowsy, the Doctor clucks and fusses and gathers up cups and shoos them off to bed. Adventures, he says sternly, can wait until they're rested because sleepy humans are dull and silly and slow on the uptake and they never run quickly enough. Besides, he has some part or other of the TARDIS to work on, and it's best he get at it.

 

IV.

Some nights are good nights, often following on the heels of the not-so-good ones. Those nights nobody dreams, the hours pass quietly, and everyone finds their own sort of peace in the darkness.

But in the mornings, always, there is still tea.


End file.
